Where- What on earth is Britain?

Britain, is the name often mistaken for The Great Britain or the UK. It is quite confusing, but I will try to explain it here;

As you can se in this diagram, The UK consists of four parts, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. All parts in the UK have the same government and queen.

Great Britain is the Island that Scotland, England and Wales are parts of. It is the ninth biggest island in the world.

So, is Britain, and Great britain the same thing?

No. The term Britain only refer to England and Wales, not Scotland. Through that, some people like to shorten the name “Great Britain” into “Britain” but as you can se it's totally wrong.

The name Britain goes all the way back to the romans, who called the area of Wales and England for “Britannia”. They never succeeded to conquer Scotland, so that is why it isn't concluded.

/Petra

The wonderful picture and facts comes from http:// wikipedia.com/ as well as http://projectbritain.com/